The Burning Maze (The Trials of Apollo #3)

While Jason’s back was turned, Caligula wheeled about. He threw his spear, driving its point between Jason’s shoulder blades. Piper screamed. Jason stiffened, his blue eyes wide in shock.

He slumped forward, wrapping his arms around Tempest’s neck. His lips moved, as if he was whispering something to his steed.

Carry him away! I prayed, knowing that no god would listen. Please, just let Tempest get him to safety!

Jason toppled from his steed. He hit the deck facedown, the spear still in his back, his gladius clattering from his hand.

Incitatus trotted up to the fallen demigod. Arrows continued to rain around us.

Caligula stared at me across the chasm – giving me the same displeased scowl my father used to before inflicting one of his punishments: Now look what you’ve made me do.

‘I warned you,’ Caligula said. Then he glanced at the pandai above. ‘Leave Apollo alive. He’s no threat. But kill the girl.’

Piper howled, shaking with impotent rage. I stepped in front of her and waited for death, wondering with cold detachment where the first arrow might strike. I watched as Caligula plucked out his spear, then drove it again into Jason’s back, removing any last hope that our friend might still be alive.

As the pandai drew their bows and took aim, the air crackled with charged ozone. The winds swirled around us. Suddenly Piper and I were whisked from the burning shell of the Julia Drusilla XII on the back of Tempest – the ventus carrying out Jason’s last orders to get us safely away, whether we wanted it or not.

I sobbed in despair as we shot across the surface of Santa Barbara Harbor, the sounds of explosions still rumbling behind us.





34


Surfing accident

My new euphemism for

Worst evening ever





For the next few hours, my mind deserted me.

I do not remember Tempest dropping us on the beach, though he must have done so. I recall moments of Piper yelling at me, or sitting in the surf shuddering with dry sobs, or uselessly clawing gobs of wet sand and throwing them at the waves. A few times, she slapped away the ambrosia and nectar I tried to give her.

I remember slowly pacing the thin stretch of beach, my feet bare, my shirt cold from the seawater. The plug of healing goo throbbed in my chest, leaking a little blood from time to time.

We were no longer in Santa Barbara. There was no harbour, no string of super-yachts, just the dark Pacific stretching before us. Behind us loomed a dark cliff. A zigzag of wooden stairs led up towards the lights of a house at the top.

Meg McCaffrey was there too. Wait. When did Meg arrive? She was thoroughly drenched, her clothes shredded, her face and arms a war zone of bruises and cuts. She sat next to Piper, sharing ambrosia. I suppose my ambrosia wasn’t good enough. The pandos Crest squatted some distance away at the base of the cliff, eyeing me hungrily as if waiting for his first music lesson to begin. The pandos must have done what I’d asked. Somehow, he’d found Meg, pulled her from the sea and flown her here … wherever here was.

The thing I remember most clearly is Piper saying, He’s not dead.

She said this over and over, as soon as she could manage the words, once the nectar and ambrosia tamed the swelling around her mouth. She still looked awful. Her upper lip needed stitches. She would definitely have a scar. Her jaw, chin and lower lip were one gigantic aubergine-coloured bruise. I suspected her dentist bill would be hefty. Still, she forced out the words with steady determination. ‘He’s not dead.’

Meg held her shoulder. ‘Maybe. We’ll find out. You need to rest and heal.’

I stared incredulously at my young master. ‘Maybe? Meg, you didn’t see what happened! He … Jason … the spear –’

Meg glared at me. She did not say Shut up, but I heard the order loud and clear. On her hands, her gold rings glinted, though I didn’t know how she could have retrieved them. Perhaps, like so many magic weapons, they automatically returned to their owner if lost. It would be like Nero to give his stepdaughter such clingy gifts.

‘Tempest will find Jason,’ Meg insisted. ‘We just have to wait.’

Tempest … right. After the ventus had brought Piper and me here, I vaguely remembered Piper harassing the spirit, using garbled words and gestures to order him back to the yachts to find Jason. Tempest had raced off across the surface of the sea like an electrified waterspout.

Now, staring at the horizon, I wondered if I could dare hope for good news.

My memories from the ship were coming back, piecing themselves together into a fresco more horrible than anything painted on Caligula’s walls.

The emperor had warned me: This is not a game. He was indeed not Commodus. As much as Caligula loved theatrics, he would never mess up an execution by adding glitzy special effects, ostriches, basketballs, race cars and loud music. Caligula did not pretend to kill. He killed.

‘He’s not dead.’ Piper repeated her mantra, as if trying to charmspeak herself as well as us. ‘He’s gone through too much to die now, like that.’

I wanted to believe her.

Sadly, I had witnessed tens of thousands of mortal deaths. Few of them had any meaning. Most were untimely, unexpected, undignified, and at least slightly embarrassing. The people who deserved to die took forever to do so. Those who deserved to live always went too soon.

Falling in combat against an evil emperor in order to save one’s friends … that seemed all too plausible a death for a hero like Jason Grace. He’d told me what the Erythraean Sibyl said. If I hadn’t asked him to come with us –

Don’t blame yourself, said Selfish Apollo. It was his choice.

It was my quest! said Guilty Apollo. If not for me, Jason would be safe in his dorm room, sketching new shrines for obscure minor deities! Piper McLean would be unharmed, spending time with her father, preparing for a new life in Oklahoma.

Selfish Apollo had nothing to say to this, or he kept it selfishly to himself.

I could only watch the sea and wait, hoping that Jason Grace would come riding out of the darkness alive and well.

At last, the smell of ozone laced the air. Lightning flashed across the surface of the water. Tempest charged ashore, a dark form laid across his back like a saddlebag.

The wind horse knelt. He gently spilled Jason onto the sand. Piper shouted and ran to his side. Meg followed. The most horrible thing was the momentary look of relief on their faces, before it was crushed.

Jason’s skin was the colour of blank parchment, speckled with slime, sand and foam. The sea had washed away the blood, but his school shirt was stained as purple as a senatorial sash. Arrows protruded from his arms and legs. His right hand was fixed in a pointing gesture, as if he were still telling us to go. His expression didn’t seem tortured or scared. He looked at peace, as if he’d just managed to fall asleep after a hard day. I didn’t want to wake him.

Piper shook him and sobbed, ‘JASON!’ Her voice echoed from the cliffs.

Meg’s face settled into a hard scowl. She sat back on her haunches and looked up at me. ‘Fix him.’

The force of the command pulled me forward, made me kneel at Jason’s side. I put my hand on Jason’s cold forehead, which only confirmed the obvious. ‘Meg, I cannot fix death. I wish I could.’

‘There’s always a way,’ Piper said. ‘The physician’s cure! Leo took it!’